Entering seems like a joke now. I had stumbled upon the competition a little over a month ago—and finally decided to enter a whopping two hours before applications (and recipes) were due. Working for Delish means that, because this is a food media outlet and because we supposedly know what we're doing, I have to enter the professional category. So I'm up against executive pastry chefs and award-winning bakery owners. But in a fit of ego muddled with equal parts FOMO/YOLO, I thought, Hey, I could do this...maybe as I hastily cobbled together a recipe, paid the $35 entry fee and clicked submit.

Fireball was a natural choice—it's the most successful video I've ever worked on at Delish, prompting its own #FireballFriday series. Cinnamon whisky and apple pie seemed as meant for each other as a naked selfie and Kim Kardashian.

I'm just warming up.

In the weeks leading up to the competition, I tinkered with my method. Even when you're following a recipe, baking can be unreliable, particularly when you're making a whisky-infused caramel sauce to toss the apples in. I learned quickly: If the pan's too hot, the Fireball will steam the second it's poured in, erupting in a cloud of eye-watering fumes. If you stir instead of whisk, the caramel turns gritty; not exactly the kind of pie porn that'd make the judges clamor to dig in.

I'm the fireball of this party.

Kathryn Wirsing

Once the Fireball caramel sauce was figured out, the crust was another story. Everybody who found out I was in a pie competition had theories about what makes the best batch:

In the end, I settled on shortening (it really does make a difference in the flakiness), flour, salt, ice water, a little apple cider vinegar. Side note: I'm still not sold on whether it helps; I was just really eager to try anything that'd make rolling dough a little easier. I also added a dash of cinnamon, because this is a Fireball pie, after all.

This is a flaming disaster.

"You should decorate the top with flames," my site director Joanna Saltz, said, when we talked through the idea. "I'll help you."

The day before I was set to fly from New York to the Sunshine State for the competition, Jo and I met in the test kitchen to try freehand-cutting a ring of fire around the pie. Let's just say it was less Johnny Cash and more Sarlacc from Star Wars.

I also carved fat, thick flames, but nobody could tell what the heck they were. In a fit of desperation, I planned a detour after getting off the plane on Thursday to meet my parents, who live about two hours away from the Caribe Royale hotel, where the championship is held each year. My mom's always been more artistically inclined than me, and I needed her guidance.

"Don't go so symmetrical," she coached, as I tried to copy a sketch of hot rod flames I found online. "Add some licks of flames near the top, too."

Kathryn Wirsing

That detour turned out to be beyond necessary. I found out I wouldn't be able to get into the kitchen I rented until 4 p.m. at the earliest, and my pie had to be on the judges' table by 8 a.m. the following day. Every second would count.

I baked a pie at their house, then built a paper towel bassinet in the back of my rental car to protect it. I drove slower than a lost tourist puttering down the far right lane with his left blinker on for miles, stopping only to pick up three coworkers who were going to help me document my descent into madness (and, okay, the championship itself).

I can't take this heat.

By the time I got to my rental, it was nearly 6 p.m. and the pie was, unfortunately, looking sloppy and deflated. I needed a backup pie—fast.

Things started to feel like Cutthroat Kitchen, only I didn't have Alton Brown nearby to entertain me with witty taunts. The eggs I bought were destroyed in transit, prompting a quick trip to the store. When I went to preheat the range, I realized I was working with a glorified Easy-Bake Oven—which made a tinny, buzzing sound the second I pressed "bake". I wasn't even sure it was going to be powerful enough to get to 350ºF.

"There are always kitchen disasters," said last year's winner. "Always."

Then halfway through baking, I realized I didn't have a rolling pin. I used a wine bottle instead, trying to smother my overwhelming feelings of incompetence with a glimmer of resourcefulness. During the competition the next day, I would learn little missteps like this are surprisingly normal. "In every demo, chefs forget one thing. For me today, it was scissors," said Duncan Hines Corporate Chef Joe DiPaolo, who hosted a pie-decorating workshop.

Kathryn Wirsing

By 1 a.m., the house smelled like whisky and pie crust, and I was finally ready to attempt a few hours' sleep before my 6 a.m. wakeup call.

Thy will be judged.

Just after 7:45 a.m., I dashed into the convention center, swerving to avoid the aforementioned chefs and their carts of envy-inducing pies. I was all too eager to get my pie into judges' hands before I tripped and dropped it—or watched a hawk swoop down and wrench it from my hands. My trial-by-Fireball was about to begin.

Who wants pie?

Kathryn Wirsing

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

There was a brief sign-in during which I was forced, perhaps against my better judgement, to sign a consent form acknowledging that we were fit enough to participate in the competition. I then signed away the rights to my recipe, making it the property of the American Pie Council. No turning back now.

From there, I carried the pie to a table, where I had to stick it with a tiny, coded flag that effectively scrubbed the dessert of my identity. My baby was now XA4, and would be taken away to the judges' tables—forbidden territory for any contestant.

Kathryn Wirsing

Anybody can fill out a form online to become a judge, provided you're 18 or older. Beyond general contact information, you're asked to explain why you want to be a judge, rank your top six pie-tasting categories (most judges will only taste two types of pie, one professional and one amateur), and list any cooking or baking organizations you belong to. Filling out the form doesn't mean you're in, but considering the council needs dozens of judges to evaluate the 130 or so entries they receive each year, your odds are pretty good.

On this Saturday, the judging would take six hours, and awards were being announced at the very end of a pie party benefitting Give Kids the World. While the judges deliberated, the competitors attended demonstrations and Q&A sessions, which varied from tart-baking tricks to a beginner's guide to smoking your own pie (which I considered Sign No. 267 I was in over my head).

Those guys are giving my pie side-eye.

Kathryn Wirsing

As I mingled between workshops, my heart soared and plummeted. But mostly plummeted. Everybody's first question was the same: "How many pies did you enter?"

I seemed to be the only person who entered just one pie. The second lowest number I encountered was a fellow first-timer, Jann, who entered three. Most people entered six or seven types of pie; some entered every single category to increase their odds of winning a blue ribbon (13 pies total, if you're a professional; 20 if you're in the amateur division).

Every single person, though, had encountered all kinds of missteps along the way—even Evette Rahman, owner of Sister Honey's bakery in Orlando, who's won Best in Show two years in a row.

"There are always kitchen disasters," she said. "Always."

Kathryn Wirsing

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

Horror stories abounded. One contestant baked 20 pies—and dropped four on her way in, smashing them to bits. Another couple drove from Atlanta, GA, each baking seven pies at the hotel the day before. They learned the hard way their oven was retaining steam, which messed with their cook time.

"We worked around it," said Paul Arguin. "We turned on the oven at 6 a.m. and didn't turn it off until 11:30 p.m." He and his husband, Christopher Taylor, create a detailed baking schedule to help them stay on track. Unlike me, their creative process starts much earlier than one month before the championship. "I started thinking about next year's competition a few days ago," Arguin said. I gulped with a level of intensity normally reserved for cartoon characters.

Taylor and Arguin often test out recipe ideas at county and state fairs in the fall, bringing their wildest, most over-the-top confections to the championship. "Presentation and decoration seems to be scored higher here than at the fairs," Taylor said. "When we're doing something local, we've done well with pumpkin and pecan, but here, you have to be more creative." Arguin agreed. "We wouldn't do just a pumpkin pie here. It'd have to be a caramel, chocolate pumpkin pie or something."

One contestant baked 20 pies—and dropped four on her way in.

I'm pretty sure they could see the light of my soul drain from my eyeballs. A Fireball Apple Pie suddenly seemed laughably basic. It felt even more basic when Chef DiPaolo elaborated on that common chef's saying that the best dishes use top-notch ingredients in a simple—yet effective—way.

"Use up to five flavors, not 15," he said. "Too many confuses people. They're like, 'What am I eating? I don't know anymore.'"

Five? I had two. Maybe three, if you count Fireball and caramel separately.

He went on to explain how contestants should be thinking about garnishes that complement the dish, giving clues as to what's inside, as well as considering the "movement" and "architecture" of the pie. I had thought of flavor, texture and crust decoration, but the overall pie architecture?

I was in full-on Mary Katherine Gallagher sweats (minus the whole armpit-sniffing thing). I just had to keep reminding myself I'm a superstar—or at least my mom thinks so—so I wouldn't curl up and die under the 30ish-foot-long table of display pies in the center of the room.

I'm burning with anxiety.

Around 4 p.m., the ballroom becomes a pie prom. There's an arch of balloons, a man singing about pastries (not kidding), and a cash bar. I bypass the latter because my coworkers made me take a "you can do it!" shot of Fireball already. But dead ahead, there's a three-foot-long lion sculpted out of shortening, as if keeping watch over the commercial pie display.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

Not even lion—this is made out of shortening.

Kathryn Wirsing

The one thing that really stands out to me: everybody knows everybody, shouting and hugging and shaking hands as people find their seats in front of the stage. It really does feel like a high school dance, if your high school's mascot was a dessert.

It's ironic, actually, because the stakes are high and everybody wants to win the $5,000 Best in Show grand prize—but there's an easygoing attitude that permeates the day. Their passion for pie—and willingness to talk shop with everyone they meet—trumps any desire to be standoffish out of fear of disclosing a trade secret.

Kathryn Wirsing

Still, my nerves start rattling when the music breaks and the awards are announced. A few people sweep the show—Taylor, for example, takes home 5 awards (3 first place, 2 second) in the amateur category—but no one quite like Rahman, who's told at one point to "move [her] chair up to the stage," as she racks up 10 awards total, including Best in Show for the third year in a row with her Super Crunch Pecan Pie.

I was in full-on Mary Katherine Gallagher sweats. I just had to keep reminding myself I was a superstar.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

At the professional level, there's one Best in Show for the overall best pie, then a first place and an honorable mention for each category. Sadly, I do not win either, but maybe that's because the world isn't quite ready yet for Fireball Apple Pie.

More realistically, though, I know it's because I've got a long way to go to catch up to the Pie Masters. After submitting my recipe, I started learning tweaks—using less flour in my pie crust and more shortening, and thickening the caramel sauce so it's not as runny—that could improve it, and now that I have a better idea of what the judges are looking for, I'd adjust my strategy to focus on the layers of flavor in each bite...and learn whatever it means to have a strong pie "architecture."

Kathryn Wirsing

As DiPaolo suggested, planning out next year's pies can wait a few days. Right now, I'm celebrating just surviving my first competition—with plenty of pie and a round of Fireball shots.

A Part of Hearst Digital Media
Delish participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites.